Browse Month

February 2020

End the Week

Yes, it is Friday and the end to yet another busy week in the world of timeshare, it has also been a costly one for some of the timeshare companies. Also going by the many emails Inside Timeshare has been receiving it may also have been a costly one for some owners/members who have been on the receiving end of the many “scams” and “fake” law firms out to get your money.

On Monday we highlighted yet another new “claims” company using the name Refund Solutions, which as we reported is actually the trading name of a genuine claims company called Rightpath Insurance Claims Ltd. Inside Timeshare contacted this company and was told categorically that they had no dealings or interest in Timeshare. They are a specialised claims company dealing with travel insurance claims such as cancelled flights.

Once again we see the “scammers” using the name of a genuine reputable company to give them credibility when consumers try to check on them. This does reinforce the fact that your “homework” needs to be very thorough indeed.

We also once again highlighted Solutions SL from Tenerife and their attempt to deprive timeshare owners/members of their cash. In this article, according to Solutions, they have just won a momentous case against Incentive Leisure, Personal Travel Group, DWVC and their directors. Well, this is really fantastic considering the companies went after the death of Gary Leigh, so the question is who was in court?

Court_Instructions_25th_Feb_2020 redactedDownload

In the “fake” court document (above) there are the names of around 67 people, several of them readers of Inside Timeshare who had no dealings with the above companies. Yet all those named have been “awarded” 32.000€, but to get this they have to pay 3000€ each, that is a staggering 201,000€!

Have you ever thought you are in the wrong job!

We now move to genuine news from the courts, the first is yet another case against Anfi Sales SL and Anfi Resorts SL. in a similar case to the one we highlighted last week, the High Court in Las Palmas overruled another Court of First Instance judgement, this again involved contracts sold after the timeshare laws came into effect on 5 January 1999.

The case was brought before the Court of First Instance where Anfi declared that the contract was legal as it fell within the “two year” period of grace. The judge agreed and the case was found in favour of Anfi.

The lawyers of Canarian Legal Alliance did not agree and subsequently lodged an appeal with the High Court. The Judge once again ruled that the contracts were illegal and that the 2 year period of grace was not intended for the continued selling of contracts which contravened the new laws.

The High Court Number 2 also ruled yet again that any payments made within the statutory cooling-off period must be paid back double, this amounts penalizing Anfi for the breach of the law.

In this case, the client UK client will now receive over 26,000€, with the court also ruling that the client receives back the costs of the First Instance Court and for the appeal be returned to the client including legal interest.

During the week we also received the news of yet another cash payout of over 45,000€ by Anfi. This is a result of yet another “enforcement action” by the Provisional Enforcement and Execution Team at CLA, headed by Judith Diaz Pascual and Cristina Batista. 

This morning the news came in of a case heard in the Court of First Instance of Palma de Mallorca, this case involves Restotels SA which is part of the Ona Group.

Once again the court has declared the contract null and void and awarded the UK client 31,449.60€. The court also penalized Restotel SA for the taking of illegal deposits within the statutory cooling-off period to the value of 40,320€.

The case was brought on behalf of the client by the Canarian Legal Alliance lawyers Miguel Ángel Melián Santana and Óscar Salvador Santana González.

So it is a big congratulations to the happy clients who are now ex-timeshare owners and to the lawyers and legal team at CLA.

As a side note, Restotel SA is a part of Ona Group who have recently purchased Excel Hotels and Resorts SA. This company was part of the Bob Trotta timeshare empire and was closely linked to Silverpoint who as we know have many claims in court against them. We have also reported that there is an investigation in progress regarding the many irregularities in the internal trading between Silverpoint and other companies in the Trotta group.

That is all for this week it now just leaves us to remind all our readers to ensure that you do your homework when contacted by any company giving you great news regarding your timeshare.

Have a great weekend and join us again next week for more insights into the scams and murky world of timeshare.

Solutions Claim to Win Case

For some time now Inside Timeshare has been warning our readers of Solutions SL who as we know is also working with the “Fake” law firm CUC Abogados, part of the now large Litigious Abogados Family. Once again one of our regular readers is keeping us up to date with their latest strategy to glean as much money out of unsuspecting timeshare owners. This article will show you how much of a fraud this bunch are perpetrating.

In the latest email from Solutions which is signed by a “lawyer” using the name David Fernando Pérez, of the Grupo Pérez Alonso “law firm”. Neither the named lawyer or law firm show up on any searches, in fact, the name of the lawyer does not even show on the official lawyer’s registration website.

The letter begins, “as you are aware we (the law firm & solutions) attended court on your behalf last Tuesday 25 February and commenced proceedings to recuperate the necessary funds to cover your awarded compensation of 32,000€”.

This email follows on from one our reader received only a few days ago with details of the court case, the problem is the letter named another client and the company that was supposed to be going to court was Incentive Leisure and Personal Travel Group. Our reader has never had any dealing with those companies which were once part of the late Gary Leigh’s businesses, our reader only had dealings with Club la Costa and Club Del Pinto and are no longer members. So it would seem that someone forgot to edit the letter and paste in our reader’s name and timeshare company.

The letter is also full of inaccurate statements such as the court have already made it clear that “the defendants will have no chance to appeal” the decision. Well, that is one fundamental right that has been denied, there is always the right to appeal, fine, the appeal court may reject the appeal but the right remains.

In the next paragraph they go on to say that the “due to the severity of this case and the total compensation owed equating to more than 1 million euros total, should the defendants fail to accrue sufficient funds to cover the compensated amount, a 7 year jail term will apply as per EU law, the judge has ruled”.

Well once again another inaccurate statement, we ask what EU law? Surely it is Spanish law as the case is heard in a Spanish Court!

They also state that a “time-frame of just over 4 weeks has been granted in which the defendants will have to declare and produce evidence of readily available funds”. It also states that another hearing has been scheduled for Monday 30 March 2020.

Wow, this is really fast work, they really must be fantastic lawyers!

Below is a copy of the FAKE court document with 67 names of “clients” removed. When you consider that the charge is 3000€ that is a whopping 201,000€ these crooks have got away with!

Court_Instructions_25th_Feb_2020 redactedDownload

The law firm and Solutions will also be submitting requests to the court to begin the seizure of “all known assets of value both here in Spain and throughout Europe”. They will also be requesting the court to embargo (freeze) all known bank accounts.

According to the letter they “the law firm and Solutions” are “very confident of a swift outcome to this matter”, they also state that they expect to have the compensation within a matter of weeks. Once again this really is fantastically fast work.

But, yes there is a but, we now come to the real nitty-gritty of the letter, they want money!

The last paragraph in full is:

“We are aware that not all clients have been able to make payment of our fees as of yet and we ask that should you fall into this category, that you make payment of our fees no later than 10 days after receipt of this email or risk exclusion from our services. To those clients who have paid, you should already be in possession of your receipt”.

Yours sincerely,

David Fernando Pérez.

Abogado.

Grupo Pérez Alonso.

So that is it in a nutshell, all fake and just after your money, the unfortunate thing is that those who have paid them have no chance of ever getting their money back, all payments are made by bank transfer into named accounts. Those accounts are emptied very quickly to prevent any “clawback” and new ones opened once they have used one account too often.

If you have had any contact from Solutions SL in Tenerife or any of the “law firms” mentioned, we would like to hear from you, please use our contact page and Inside Timeshare will get back to you.

SO REMEMBER YOU MUST DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE ENGAGING WITH ANY COMPANY THAT MAKES CONTACT WITH SUCH WONDERFUL NEWS.

Mid Week Report

So far this has proved to be a very busy week with many emails and lots of research to get on with, so Inside Timeshare apologises for the lack of an article yesterday. Only recently Inside Timeshare reported that ECC/M1 Legal has taken over many assets and clients of various Mark Rowe companies such as ABC Legal and ABC Lawyers. We have received many emails from clients regarding yet two more Mark Rowe companies being taken over, but what will this mean for the clients?

We begin with Lansdown Financial Limited, as we all know this is the (Rowe) arm which ABC passed clients to make a claim against their timeshares on a no win no fee basis. But as we know they had to have their contracts cancelled first.

Inside Timeshare has never had any reports of any client ever receiving the promised “compensation” and the question has always been how will they be claiming this “compensation”?

As we have not had any reports this is a very difficult question to answer, all we can guess is that no claims were ever processed or just failed under “no grounds” for a claim. Your guess is as good as mine.

Well, it now seems that there may be a glimmer of hope for clients who have been passed to Lansdown by ABC, a law firm based in Manchester has now taken over the assets and clients of Lansdown Financial.

The law firm is Mellor Solicitors Ltd, they are a duly registered company and as a law firm are registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, with the SRA Registration 639178. Their address is:

Mellor Solicitors Ltd, 8 Church Lane, Oldham, Lancashire, OL1 3AP

Their website: www.LansdownFinancial.co.uk

Hopefully, this should be good news for those clients as Mellor Solicitors have a proven track record in the field of compensation claims, we certainly hope so.

The next one is rather interesting, this concerns yet another Mark Rowe company and product called Jive Hippo, as you are all aware this product or club replaced the very discredited Monster Credits and Monster Rewards which came before.

The company which has taken over Jive Hippo members is called Gr8stays, which is also a club based travel company offering discounted prices on accommodation flights and a host of other products. All we can say is that once again we hope that those members of Jive Hippo who felt cheated may now get the deals they were promised originally.

As always time will tell.